Embracing and An Attitude of Gratitude and Humor: A Heartfelt Discussion on Coping with Cancer at Thanksgiving

Hey there, lifter uppers. I'm Deb Krier, the co-host of Cancer and Comedy, where our mission is to heal cancer-impacted people through hope and humor—something we like to call turning the grim into a grin.

Well, today on Cancer and Comedy, we're going to be talking about practicing an attitude of gratitude, even when challenged by cancer. Now, here is the host of our Cancer and Comedy podcast, Dr. Brad Miller.

Deb, what an honor and privilege! Always a joy to be with you. Today, we're talking about a really important topic, and we happen to be recording this a few days before Thanksgiving.

People think a lot about being thankful and grateful during Thanksgiving time, but it can also be a time when some folks feel agitated or annoyed because of others being happy and grateful. We'll discuss some of that dichotomy today.

Here on Cancer and Comedy, we are all about helping people cope with hope when facing challenges. We're about developing a community of people who can help one another. We'd love for people to check out our community and get connected with our Cancer and Comedy family. Just go to cancerandcomedy.com/follow.

Well, Deb, how about a couple of turkey-related Thanksgiving bad dad jokes? Ready for those?

Oh my gosh, I need some turkey-related bad dad jokes.

Alright, here's one: what did the Thanksgiving turkey say to the Christmas ham?

I don't know.

Nice to meat you! Okay, here's another one: when are turkeys the most grateful?

I don’t know.

The day after Thanksgiving!

True!

Okay, here's a bonus: why do pilgrims' pants always fall down?

I don’t know!

Because their buckles are on their hats!

Of course! Oh my gosh, those are classic! Well, folks, if you've listened to our program before, you know that after our conversation, we'll have another one of Dr. Brad's bad jokes of the day.

Then, of course, we’ll get serious with our very important "Face It or Break It" segment. As mentioned, we'd love for you to be a part of the Cancer and Comedy community. Together, we crush cancer with a message of how to cope with hope and humor. Please follow us at cancerandcomedy.com/follow.

Well, Deb, we really mean it as serious. We talk about crushing cancer with a message of hope and humor. But it's true also that not everybody has hope and humor when they deal with cancer and comedy. That's why I believe our message is so important. This is why you and I got together to do this podcast and to offer this. And there is actually a lot—we've talked about it many times in our episodes—about how there are even, you know, scientific studies, medical reports, and so on that show how having a positive attitude and having a bit of humor in your life and laughter does help to alleviate some of the symptoms of cancer, and/or helps us heal.

But not everybody feels that way, and so we're talking today about attitude, and about how attitude can shift back and forth, particularly when you have cancer. You get a first—you know, you get a first diagnosis—it can put you down in the dumps right away and maybe give you a pretty negative attitude. And then, how to get that shifted around.

But one of the important parts of this is having an attitude of gratitude, which is a phrase we often use during the holiday season. But it's true that having gratitude and thankfulness in your life can make a big difference. But it's a tall challenge. It's a tall order for a lot of folks to get beyond that because they can get stuck in a bad place.

And I know recently—you've had, yeah, had an encounter with some people who, my observation from what you've shared with me, they're kind of stuck in a bad place, and you got caught up in that a little bit. So I thought you've got a little bit of a story to tell that has to do with attitude. So I want you to take off from here and tell me—tell us, tell our lifter-uppers—a little bit about the experiences you recently had, right?

Well, first of all, you know, one of the things that I think is very important that we always talk about is: who are you surrounding yourself with? And I did have an experience today that I'll give in a little bit more detail. But then, having this conversation with you gets me out of that funk.

And I think that one of the things that we need to really look at is: who are we surrounding ourselves with? What are they saying to us? Because they—you know, if they're gloomy, if they're, "Oh my God, the world is coming to an end, you're gonna die tomorrow," you know, all of those things—then we start really believing it. You know?

And studies have shown that, and that negativity sticks; it's really hard to let go of it. You know? And, and so, yeah, anytime you find yourself caught up in that, you need to find somebody who's going to help you out of that.

So, my story today was that I have been going on other podcasts as a guest to talk about my cancer journey. Now, you know, I'm a pretty upbeat person, indeed, with my story. And, you know, there are bad things—there are really bad things that have happened, you know, and—but I don't dwell on those. Do I feel them? Yes. You know, there's all sorts of things.

But I was scheduled to be on a podcast this morning and got an email from the host. And she said that she was going to cancel because she didn't want to waste our time. Okay, well, that was good, but she didn't want to waste our time because she felt my message would not resonate with her listeners because I was too positive. And two, I gave too rosy of a forecast for having cancer.

And she said, you know, "They need to know the grim reality of what's going on." And I responded, and I said, "Okay, well, I have had a lot of very bad things happen—this, this, this, this—and, you know, but, again, I choose to get through this in a positive way and in a way that is helping others and being of service to others."

And it's funny because she responded, and then her response was, I was too old for her listeners.

That's flat-out mean there.

Especially because I'm pretty sure she and I are pretty close to the same age! So clearly, our messages were just conflicting, and that's okay. But, you know, my thought was—and she was really specific that she wanted to present the reality, the negatives.

And I thought about that. And I'll be honest, I was offended. I was offended at her email. But more importantly, I was very sad that that is the message that she wants to put out there.

Now, we don't want to be too Pollyanna—to, you know, and—and, "Oh, the world is a rosy place, and there's nothing wrong with it," because then, when bad things happen, we're going to really feel them much more.

We need to be realistic. You know? My realism is that I've gone far longer than the doctors told me I would—yay! She saw that as a negative.

It was very interesting. Her comment was, "Most of her listeners would never live as long as I have." And I thought, "Well, that's really bad." I mean, it was just—I—but, you know—it's like—

She took your positive and tried to turn it into a negative for her audience. That's turning things backward from what we try to do here.

Yeah, yeah. You know? And, and again, we do need to be realistic. And I think one of the issues is, you know, we've talked a lot about not being around or having toxic thoughts—those toxic, negative thoughts.

But I think there are times where there can be toxic positivity. You know, that, you know, instead of "The sky is falling," it's "Everything is beautiful, and everything will be fabulous." Well, you know, not always.

And so we do have to watch that. And that was kind of one of my thoughts: Am I too positive? Am I too happy? And of course, everybody said no—

Except for this person, apparently.

It was just the strangest thing. But it did really make me think. And it was funny because you had proposed this topic before I got her email, and it was like, "Oh my gosh, fate," because it really did make me think—what is our attitude? You know, are we going forward with "the sky is falling," or are we going forward with "everything is hunky-dory"? Or are we going forward with "whatever comes, we can deal with it"? And I think that's the message that I want to get to everybody: you know what? We can deal with it, and we can still be grateful. I laugh and I joke. When people tell me, "Hey, how are you doing today?" I tell them, "Well, I'm not looking up at six feet of dirt." Yeah, there you go. And sometimes people are taken aback by that.

Well, let me jump in. Let me jump in and reflect with you just for a second about what happened here with this person. And I try to keep this in mind sometimes when I talk to people, when I've been in counseling situations, or at times when I've been attacked in my life for various things. There’s a sensibility that people want to kind of attack you because they have some of their own stuff going on. You know, they’ve got their—oh yeah—they have their own negativity, their own deal. And she is probably coming from a bad place, possibly. So I just would encourage you—and I just want to thank you for reflecting with this person a positive outlook in spite of her obvious negative outlook. Toxic positivity is a problem, that’s true, but my gosh, toxic negativity is a much greater issue in our world, with loneliness and depression and disease. I think it’s incumbent upon people like you and me to try to be a point of light, to shine into those dark places. So I just want to thank you for doing that. But keep going, my friend. I know you’re fired up, so keep going.

Well, you know, and what you just said really struck home. I don’t know why she responded this way. Maybe she got horrible news. You know, who knows? And so I need to take a breath or two and calm down, right? Because she didn’t mean it as an insult. Even though I kind of took it that way, she didn’t mean it that way. And I need to respond back to her with love, yes, and just say, you know, I probably won’t say, "I don’t know what you’re going through," but I think I’ll just say, "Thank you for letting me know, and in the future, please let me know if there’s any way I can be of assistance to you," and just end it with that. Because you’re right—we don’t know. When that person at Starbucks is grumpy, maybe they lost their dog that morning, or whatever. And so we need to always take that step back and stop those stories that are going on in our head.

Yeah, very rarely does it help when you respond in a negative fashion when someone is negative towards you. If someone attacks you, and you attack them back—well, I’ll just use some biblical principles of turning the other cheek, and so on. The very rare outcome of an attack-and-attack response is that both parties withdraw, go into a defensive mode, and nothing really gets done. I think, you know, I’m not going to go off on too big a tangent, but some of the issues we have about divisions in families, political differences, or differences among any number of groups have to do with people not talking to one another, even if they don’t agree. And that comes into play. It almost never works if you just say, "I’m right, and you’re wrong, and that’s the end of it." That doesn’t get anywhere.

I do agree wholeheartedly with your idea of responding with love and joy. You still need to hold your position—you know, not cave on that—but to hold your position and respond in love and care. Say something like, "I respect your position, but I just want to wish you the best. And if we can be of service in the future, maybe that can happen." Let’s take this whole scenario here, Deb, and think: how can we take this and try to be helpful to our lifter-uppers, who may be facing their own situations? They might be dealing with a cancer diagnosis with little joy or a bad attitude. There are a lot of miserable people in the world, and other people want you to be miserable with them, right?

Yeah, misery loves company.

Right. So how can we help people? You know, we talk a little bit of those attitude and changing your bad attitude to a good attitude. What do you think are some ways that may be helpful, either to this person or helpful to people in our listening audience? About can move towards something different here, something be helpful here, change your attitude from a bad attitude to a better attitude.

Right. So how can we help people? You know, we talk a little bit about those attitudes and changing your bad attitude to a good attitude. What do you think are some ways that may be helpful, either to this person or helpful to people in our listening audience? How can we move towards something different here, something helpful here—change your attitude from a bad attitude to a better attitude?

I think one of the big things we need to remember is only we are responsible for our attitude, you know. And if that needs to change, then we need to change it, you know. Maybe part of it, too, is we might need to redefine what success is. You know, maybe rather than—and we've talked about having goals—you know, one of your goals is, obviously, to see your granddaughters grow up and graduate from high school and all of those various things. Sometimes we might need to scale it back a bit, and then we can change them. I mean, we're not saying, you know, get too maudlin. But maybe we need to redefine what success is because I think sometimes we get too big with what we think is something. I mean, like in marketing, we call it a BHAG—a big, hairy, audacious goal, right? Sometimes those BHAGs are so unattainable that it’s crushing when we can't attain them. So, redefine what you're thinking about. For some people, it might be, "I'm going to get through the day."

I think that's true. I think it's also about trying to get a little better, a little more appropriate perspective, and understanding about our situation and circumstances compared to what is possible. The realism that you have to be realistic, but also live in hope—because if you don't live in hope, you are going to go into your demise. There's something here I'll just interject into our conversation called the Stockdale Paradox. Maybe you've heard—have you heard of this term, Stockdale Paradox?

No.

Stockdale Paradox. In short, I picked it up from the teachings of a guy named Jim Collins in Good to Great—maybe a business teacher. But anyhow, Stockdale, Admiral Stockdale, was a pilot during the Vietnam era. He was shot down over Hanoi and ended up in what they call the Hanoi Hilton, which is the prison in Vietnam. He later became a senator and a very decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, one of the most highly decorated, at least.

The point I want to make here is, when he went to the Hanoi Hilton, he was there for several years—about four years. He wrote later on about the phenomenon where some people, other pilots who were put there, would have an attitude of, "Okay, I'm going to be home by Christmas. I'll get out of here right away," this kind of thing. And they didn't necessarily make it. You know, they either had a mental breakdown, or some of them died, and so on because that wasn't their reality. They were prisoners of war.

Other people gave up hope completely, thinking, "We'll never, ever get out of here," right? And they didn’t make it either because they lacked hope.

What Stockdale talked about was the paradox of accepting your brutal facts—horrible as they may be—and then choosing to continue to live your life with hope for a better future. That's what he applied in his life, and he learned it from his fellow prisoners there. He applied it throughout his life.

I've often used it in terms of dealing with my own cancer and my own bad things that happen in life and adversities. Okay, bad things happen, and bad things happen to good people. You have to accept it and embrace it in a way and say, "This is my present reality," and yet not be defeated by it. Choose to still live in hope.

That's what I think we’re trying to do here—give people some tools to cope with hope, to see a bigger future. I just want to say, way to go, that you are providing out of your own experience. Your experiences with your cancer are brutal—absolutely brutal. You've faced the brutal facts, and I know how you’ve shared them with our Cancer and Comedy audience, and still chosen to show up.

Not only here on the Cancer and Comedy Podcast, but also in the interviews you’ve done with other people, and your TryingNotToDie.live website and Facebook page. I just thank God for people like you. I'm thankful and grateful that you continue to push on.

I'll just say this to affirm you a little bit: I do not see you being Pollyannaish. You've shared the brutal facts of your situation, but for crying out loud, you continue to face things with a smile on your face and a good attitude. You're just not done yet. Are you, Deb? You're not done, right?

I'm far from done, you know. And we never know—I mean, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. So it's all about how we're living right now. That's what I think is so important.

I also want to say, if you find yourself being far more negative than is probably good for you, then please get help. Whether it's a support group, a counselor, friends, clergy—whoever it might be. You just need a little extra help, and it makes you strong for asking for that help. It never makes you weak, which is what a lot of people think. It makes you very strong to ask for help.

Well, the reality of your cancer diagnosis is devastating. Let’s talk about a couple of positive things you can do to be assertive, based on what you just shared.

One of those is self-care—having a much greater awareness about your health, mental health, and emotional health. Any of those areas. Because just because you have a cancer diagnosis doesn’t mean you can’t start living a healthier lifestyle. Whatever it is—seeing the doctor, getting treatment, exercising, dieting, or improving your mental health.

Another practical thing we can do is choose to build on the present relationships we have and create new ones. You know, focus on the positive. And if you have relationships that are toxic, maybe you need to take a break from those and instead enhance the uplifting and positive ones.

As you mentioned, there are support groups and things like that. We’re building a community here at CancerComedy.com. You’re building community at TryingNotToDie.live. I think relationships and self-care are two areas where people can help themselves.

Right, I agree. And we should be doing that all the time, whether we have a cancer diagnosis or not. You know, it’s funny—I saw somebody post on Facebook today, “Going through my friend list and getting rid of people. Tell me how we met.” And I thought, you know, that’s actually…now, the funny thing is, I didn’t respond.

But I think that’s something we maybe need to continually do. And also maybe go back and reach out to people that might have dropped off. You have no idea why, you know. They may or may not respond to you. But reach back out to them and just say, “Hey, I’ve been thinking about you. Maybe because of an upcoming high school reunion or a class we took, or something that happened.”

Just reach out to them, because you never know when they might really need that. But yeah, it’s just something I think we should all be doing all the time.

Well, I think you make a really good point there. It’s about being intentional, about being assertive. One of the things you become aware of when you get a cancer diagnosis, in my mind at least, is you start to hear the clock and the calendar ticking a little louder. The end of my life didn’t seem like some far-off unknown thing. It just seemed like, okay, this could be something I have to deal with sooner rather than later.

So why not reach out to some people from the past? Why not try to go a little deeper in present relationships? Take a bit of a risk. In my experience, if you’re a bit assertive in these relationships, most people aren’t going to bite your head off.

And if anything, they might just not respond.

That’s true too. But I would just say that when they do respond, many times it’s affirming. This past summer, I was able to visit—I live in Indianapolis—I was able to visit an uncle in Spokane, Washington. I hadn’t seen him in person for many, many years. We were able to share some stories and have a reconnection.

We literally live on opposite sides of the country, so we don’t see each other often. But it was a wonderful thing. I took the opportunity to personally go to his home because, you know, he’s up in years and not able to travel. When I was out in that part of the world, I went to his home, and we had a great visit.

I won’t forget that, and he won’t forget that. I made the effort to go because I’m still able to. There may come a time when I’m not able to go, and I’ll be dependent on people coming to me.

I kind of want to be known as the guy who reached out to others in the hope that, someday, some of them might reach out to me. That kind of thing.

I love what you said about redefining success, accepting our feelings, accepting our situation, and reframing relationships. Have you found yourself doing some of that—kind of redefining success and reframing expectations?

I think more than anything—maybe it’s because we’re recording this right before Thanksgiving—we’re getting ready to go into the holiday season. Contrary to Hallmark, you know, I don’t watch Christmas movies in September.

But I think it does—you know, it’s a time for reflection, and definitely a time to be thinking about what we are grateful for. And sometimes those are little things. Sometimes we have to search for them.

There are days where I’m like, “Nope, I’m just mad at the world.” And then my dog will come up and put her head on my lap. There you go. Or I’ll get a text from somebody saying, “Hey, just was thinking about you.”

So you never know what’s going to happen. It’s also, I think, a reciprocity thing. Don’t wait for everything to come to you. As you said, reach out to others because it’s kind of the “what goes around comes around” or the golden rule—whatever we want to call it.

If you want good things to happen to you, then you need to be sharing those good things.

We have to be intentional about it. I heard it said somewhere—maybe in one of the studies we’ve read or learned about—that when you have a negative thing happen or a bad experience, it can stick with you. Those things can really stick.

It’s kind of a 10-to-1 ratio. You need ten positive things to help balance out the one negative thing. If I don’t dig very far, I can think of negative stuff that’s happened in my life way back. Way back. The positive things seem like they need more work to stand out.

I’d encourage us to think about more positive thoughts—affirmations and that kind of thing—because the negative stuff is almost always going to be there, right at the surface, ready to negate us.

If you had a chance encounter with this person—or a person like them—who you had a bad experience with, say you walked into your local coffee shop, and there they were…what do you think the encounter would be? Would you just get your coffee and go, or would there be a brief conversation?

Interesting. I would hope that I’d be the bigger person. I don’t know that I would go up and strike up a conversation, but I would want to acknowledge them. Maybe it’s just that—you acknowledge them, you kind of smile and wave their way, and then you see what happens.

We all know that sometimes we misinterpret things, right? Maybe they weren’t even aware that there was something bad going on. So yeah, I would just acknowledge them, say hi, and kind of leave it at that.

Try to engage rather than enrage, right? I’ve been there. I’ve avoided people at times because I didn’t want to deal with them. But if you can have a moment just to connect on a human level, some sort of positive thing—that’s a better place to be, in my opinion. Avoidance doesn’t really work, and confrontation doesn’t work. If you can make some sort of connection, even if it’s brief…

I’m sorry you had this negative experience. I know you handled it well. You’re an awesome person, and your brightness and aliveness brighten my life. I know for a fact your positive attitude helps people here among our lifter-uppers and our Cancer and Comedy audience. I know it helps the people you’ve been reaching out to through TryingNotToDie.live and by putting yourself out there on cancer-related podcasts.

So I just want to say, “Yay, God! Way to go.” I’m thankful and grateful for who you are and how you responded to a negative situation with positivity.

You’ve indeed, in this day, turned someone whose focus was on the grim—

Maybe into a grin. It really does mean a lot to me that you said that. Thank you so much.

Yeah, we need to turn those grim into grins. So, folks, that means it’s time for another one of Dr. Brad’s bad jokes of the day.